On March 20, every year the world celebrates the International Day of Happiness. The day has more importance than ever today as the world is going through a lot emotionally already with recent unprecedented events such as the Pandemic, the Russian-Ukraine conflict, and much more.
What is happiness?
A human emotional state of being satisfied, content mentally and physically, where one can feel joy, bliss, and fulfillment is happiness. For every different individual, it carries a different definition, however, happiness has everything to do with positive emotions and living a satisfactory life.
Jayme Illien proposed the idea of the International Day of Happiness at the United Nations General Assembly in 2011. His desire was to promote Happiness economics around the world by improving the economic development of all countries.
International day of happiness was observed for the first time in the year 2013. Coordinated by Action for Happiness, a non-profit movement of people from 160 countries, this campaign was celebrated with a resolution to spread happiness through spreading awareness about the importance of happiness in an individual’s life. The UN initiated various moves such as including the Right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness in the Internal Law for Human Rights.
Bhutan was the first country which took the initiative to introduce the concept of happiness based on the Gross National Happiness (GNH). Since then United Nations announced sustainable development goals with the aim of focusing on factors that affect the happiness of a person no matter where they live, such as eradication of poverty and abolishing inequality as well as saving the environment.
This year the theme for International day of happiness is “Build Back Happier”. One cannot help but think of this theme as a positive thought keeping in mind the chaos caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.